Attended an address today by Dr Pronab Sen, former Chief Statistician of India and Chairman National Statistical Commission. I must admit despite his slightly absent minded looks, he is the most articulate economist I have heard in a long time. Some excerpts. He threw a lot of light of issues generating lots of heat in the press nowadays. (Errors in figures if any is entirely mine).

Should we believe the new GDP growth rates reported

People confuse output for income. GDP is not the sum of turnover but income. A consumption good may be traded at 4-5 intermediate stages before it reaches the final consumer. Then GDP is not the summation of the turnover of the 4 intermediate trades but just the income (Value added) at each of these stages. Example: if an auto mfgr imports components of Rs 30, assembles and sells the car at Rs 55, the dealer to retail showroom at Rs 70, and the retailer to customer at Rs 80… the GDP will be Rs 50 (25+15+10) not Rs 235 (30+55+70+80) or Rs 205 (55+70+80).

Thus GDP is not summation of Value of Outputs (VO) but summation of Value added (VA) at each stage.

In India the long term average (1950-1998) VA ratio was 16% for manufacturing industries. Between 1998 & 2003 it increased to 18%. By 2011-15 this has increased to 22.5%. Thus a lot more value addition is taking place in our output than anytime in the past. Even if our output may not have grown at higher rates, the value added component in that output has gone up … giving higher GDP numbers. This is what is being witnessed now.

2 Typically in a downturn, industries invest in efficiency improvements rather than investments in physical assets. In Boom time they invest in physical assets (may be indiscriminately). During 2 crunch times of 1998-2003 credit squeeze and 2011-2015, India has invested and become far more efficient and is achieving higher VA in its output. We are lot more competitive globally today than 10 years back.

3 China also invested heavily in physical assets during boom years. Their VA/VO ratio was also fortunately high in mid-20s which has fallen and stands over the last decade to 19% now, less than India’s in several sectors – a sign of over investment. They are now investing in efficiencies and technologies. The World average (long term) is 18-19%. India is well placed now on cost competitiveness and more industries should identify their strengths and grow; they should not worry too much about our size being 1/5th or 1/10th of China’s in their industry.

Why corporate profitability is low in spite of higher value added

4 The VA has 2 large components – (i) what is paid out as wages and salaries (WS) and (ii) other operating surplus(OS) (paid out as interest, dividend, retained surplus, etc.). In the last 5 years the average rate of growth in WS for India as a whole is 17% p.a. meaning far more is paid out as salaries and wages and the share of OS is 10% p.a. of which the share of interest has been high. Dividend payout has also increased dramatically affecting Corporate profitability and retained surpluses. Wages and salaries in rural India has risen faster than in urban areas/industries.

Shift in manufacturing profile

5 The share of unlisted firms is growing faster than listed companies. Unlisted firms are growing at 12% CAGR while listed firms output is growing at 7% CAGR. The share of informal sector has quietly reached 40% today.

India is becoming more entrepreneurial. It would not be surprising to see that in the next 5/10 years, the top 20 of the 40 construction companies will be totally new and unheard of now.

6 Black money distorts asset allocation. Most of it is kept in black assets – gold and real estate. Now that there is drive against black money, real estate is suffering.

7 IIP numbers are constructed from select industries. Those mfg industries/product which contribute at least 2% of total is selected first. Some of these may have 8% some 5% and so on. 14 such products contribute 80%.

For these products/ industries, just the top 6 firms (turnover wise) are selected. Their rate of growth is taken and averaged and reported as IIP numbers. The index we are using has a base 2004.

During the last 10 years between 2004/5 and now, the small and medium scale sector in these industries have grown far faster (at 14% p.a) than the corporate sector (7% p.a) and the sample 6 have grown even slower. The share of small firms have grown from 30% to 50% in the last 10 years – a fact not captured by the index.

Construction of any index is a time consuming and costly exercise based on extensive surveys. Thats why they are not done frequently. A new series with base 2011 is in the offing, which might set right the anomaly between GDP and IIP numbers.

Why Indian industry is not investing even if it is growing

7 Informal sector which is growing the maximum does not have much savings – it is squeezed out by the money lenders – their main source of finance.

More is paid out as wages and salaries, who may not have the same investment urges as retained earnings.

and of course the High interest rates (see below)

Interest rates

8 Indian interest rates are very high. It attracts a lot of portfolio flows which come in and keeps Rupee artificially high and un-competitive. The way to correct it is to let the interest rates fall which will enable the industries to invest and absorb these flows. If the flows are properly absorbed the currency will find proper level ($ may be Rs 72/75 instead of being Rs 67-68) and portfolio flows will be moderated. This has not been allowed to happen and our real interest rates have been kept artificially high. We are just accumulating reserves instead of putting it to productive use.

9 Indian industry is crying hoarse on high real interest rates. What they should be screaming at is the differential interest rates. Between 2008 and now these have moved significantly against India.

Our corporate interest rates were 9% average towards end of last decade when the global interest rates were 4.5 % – a gap of 4.5%. Today our interest rates are 10.5% when the global interest rates are kept at 1.5% a gap of 9%. Not an ideal situation for investments. It is better to invest overseas, even if to supply to India.

Thus Indian industry is caught between artificially high interest rates and artificially high forex rates which does not enable them to raise prices in line with costs.

Difference between Planning Commission and the current NITI AAYOG.

10 The previous planning commission had a 15 year, 5 year and 1 year plans/horizons.

15 years – There was a broad perspective plan which was not generally well known or publicized.

5 years – Better known as 5 year Plans. This was an approach paper.

1 year – laid out the expenditure for various programmes.

The NITI AAYOG has a 15, 7, 3 year cycles.

15 year. Vision document – the Government has asked the Niti Aayog to come up with this.

7 year – plans and programmes.

3 year – implementation plans for the above.

NPAs

11 The current NPA is entirely that of Corporate sector. The priority sector NPAs have remained at their usual 1.5%.

12 From financing just working capital needs from retail savings our Banks are now financing long term loans from the retail savings. More than 50% of lending today is for long term loans. This is inherent mismatch. Our commercial Banks are not just designed to deal with NPAs.

13 It is not that we were without NPAs earlier. The long term loans were earlier met by DFIs (IDBI, ICICIs, IFCIs) which financed themselves with long term Bonds (15 year types) and were far better able to deal with temporary fluctuations in business and time taken to rectify/reconstruct even bad decisions. It is simply not feasible to deal with them on a quarterly basis, which is what the banks are expected to do now.